School Board Meeting: April 21, 2020

001Good evening I would like to call to order the regular monthly meeting of the Newport News school board for Tuesday April 21st 2020 I'm here for the members of the school board and our superintendent I welcome each of you watching a quorum is present to transact the business of the school division as you may be aware on the agenda that was saying that you may have in your possession a closed meeting was not held today. so there's no need to certify the closed meeting that meeting was canceled, so to see you've deemed I'd like to read a little statement. the COVID 19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on all of us. with the closure of schools and businesses, our daily lives have changed we are all adapting to this temporary new way of life

002and school for doing the same thing as well we are implementing new procedures for our meeting this evening we are holding an electronic meeting to transact the business of the school board and in doing so we are participating we are practicing social distancing in property and cooperation with the governor's order. we are taking these steps to ensure the health and well-being of our staff students and the public. we would prefer to conduct our business face-to-face with an audience but like so many of you, we understand the importance of doing all we can to flatten the curve of the coronavirus. tonight I'm in the school administration auditorium and I'm joined by Superintendent Dr. Parker by the deputy city attorney, by our school board Clerk Ms. Moore Buffaloe and three staff members. school members are connected with

003virtually and the public will be able to see and hear as we review and discuss school board business the audience with individuals and public comment section of our agenda test also as temporarily has changed as advertise citizens baits and mid comments via a web forum email voicemail up to 30 minutes prior to our meeting time to be included in the official meeting records all comments will be provided to all school board members we are committed to conduct we are we are committed to conducting our many of our meetings in an open manner and we will make every effort to ensure the public has input we value and appreciate your partnership we will begin tonight's meeting with a pledge each presentations to our flavor so I would ask you what you please stand well thank you

004so we'll move our agenda into the audience with individuals audience with individuals as we stated earlier the school board has revised our public input procedures due to social distancing and large gatherings restrictions citizens are encouraged to submit comments to the school board electronically or by phone visit our webpage at NNschools.org to access the web forum email addresses and phone line. so at this time we would have board recognitions and a Dr. Parker Thank You Mr. Chairman and good evening to our public who are viewing up online this evening as Chairman Hunter stated earlier the Cova tonight teen pandemic has greatly impacted all of us the governor's mandatory school closure has certainly changed how we deliver instruction and essential operations we understand the challenges are facing our families and Newport News public schools will continue to

005partner with our families to provide at home learning materials meals to go for students and other helpful resources I am proud of how our staff has stepped up to support our students families and community while dealing with their own circumstances so tonight we are celebrating our dedicated staff across the school division teachers that have at all levels are ensuring that students are engaged in at home learning with packets experiments online instruction and virtual class meetings this has been well received we have heard from many students and parents via email and social media up to this point so with special thanks to our teachers coaches and school counselors interventionists and other assistants in the who support the Department of teaching and learning and kudos to our school social workers and psychology who are making sure that

006our students continue to receive the social-emotional support that they need to thrive additionally employees in child nutrition transportation technology and security are actively supporting our students and families daily during this closure at sites throughout the city our child nutrition staff bus drivers and security officers are distributing meals to go and instructional packets to families initially we started with six feeding sites were created and an effort we expanded to include mobile feeding sites and are now our team is distributing about 5,000 meals per day each weekday this is also a testament to our bus repair and maintenance team for keeping our buses rolling our meals to go team goes above and beyond every day and for that we say thank you we'd also like say kudos to our technology team they have distributed over 1,000 1,100

007Chromebooks and 250 Wi-Fi hotspots the families and help to troubleshoot issues with connectivity for students who are learning at home I also want to thank our to thank and acknowledge our professional office staff our administrative team and business office team and the community relations team in conjunction with HR for their efforts for ensuring central operations and communication in our schools we want to thank school leadership and our administrators and our building administrators and our youth development team who are doing all they can to ensure that students feel connected and supported through social media virtual meetings and Newport News public schools connect opportunities this team is making sure that our students are engaged connected and well informed without without pause we know that these are trying times but together the Newport News public schools family is

008making a difference for students and families to whom we serve on behalf of our school board and our leadership team we say thank you all that our staff are doing to support our community and support our students during this crisis I have two additional special acknowledgments this evening this week is Administrative Administrative Professionals Appreciation Week we send a special thank you to our professional office staff for their dedicated support office management and customer service and this is also the national school leadership week so we want to thank our student leaders for their service to our schools and the community and I'm sending a special shout-out to Mr. Nyes erigor our student advisory committee chair and also representative on the school board and good to see you joining us this evening Isaiah that concludes the recognitions

009this evening Mr. Chairman and thank you for the opportunity Thank You Dr. Parker well at this time we will continue with our agenda item number three we have our casino jindo 3.01 minutes regular session March 24th 2020 3.02 financial reports child attrition services March 2020 revenue and expenses March 2020 3.O3 personnel report 3.0 for budget transfers 3.05 lease of airport hangar for aviation academy program is their motion for acceptance of the consent agenda yes Mr. Chairman I move to approve a special excuse me i consent agenda to include minutes financial reports personnel report budget transfer and the lease of airport hangar for aviation academy program Chairman I moved to second the motion to adopt a consent agenda you heard the motion and you hear the second time for the question but there being none I

010Ms. Maura Buffalo please call the roll these are all small for doctor best very best for Mrs. Alger nor it's an altar for Mr. brown Douglas Brown for Mr. le Jean Ely for Mr. Harris Marvin Harris for and Mr. hunter Gary Hunter for thank you very much we all move on to item number four or action items yes sir Dr. Parker I'm sorry Sherman we have one personnel item that was on the consent agenda and at this time I would like to acknowledge that of that promotion this candidate was brought to us as a potential for a directors level position with with the office of assessment and strategic operations the formal title is director director of equity assessment and strategic operations who will manage the program evaluations oversee and work with our testing coordinating our

011testing program and assessment and monitoring the fine work of our strategic plan moving forward I'd like to introduce our new director who as Mr. dr. Shamika Gerald who is currently the principal at Heritage High School and Shamika has served as the principal at Heritage High School since 2014 she has a math background which she is now will now have to put the use in this new position because it is a position that requires some statistical analysis as you and program evaluation prior to becoming the principal at Heritage High School she served as the assistant principal at Debbie high school from 2010 to 2014 and before and came from to us from Norfolk public schools where she served as a middle school as a high school skills me and middle school math teacher in the in

012Norfolk Public Schools dr. Gerald brings a wealth of talent to our administrative central office administrative team we're looking forward to her leadership as we look at broadening our assessment of our programs in Newport News and also strengthening the work of our strategic plan so at this time I think we asked dr. Gerald to join us to own this conference on this meeting call and Mr. Chairman I would like to give dr. Gerald an opportunity to introduce ourselves family heritage high school and I'm definitely excited about the opportunity to work in the department of accountability as the director of equity assessment operations I would be remiss if I did not thank my 5800 family for a phenomenal experience and it really the work there has really prepared me for my next steps moving for it so

013I just want to thank you for this opportunity and the ability to serve heritage high school for the past six years thank you dr. Gero I believe the whole board is excited to have you on board again congratulations on your doctorate and we look forward to all the great things that you will be bringing to us and adding to our school division so again congratulations on behalf of the entire school board well thank you and I would be remiss if I didn't say hello to my mom and dad who are watching thank you okay thank you is that all Dr. Parker that concludes promotions at this time Mr. Chairman thank you and we will move the agenda to action items I don't 4.01 our special education and you plan we did hear that plan at

014our last school board meeting they do can we have a motion to approve that particular plan Mr. Chairman I'm going to approve the special education federal plan the amount of six million four hundred seventy nine thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars is your second Mr. Chairman I moved to second the motion to approve the special education plan you heard the motion and a second time for the question there being none Ms. Moore-Buffaloe, please call the roll Lisa Surles-Law for. Dr. Best ry Best for. Mrs. Alger? Maritza Alger for. Mr. Brown? Douglas Brown for Mr. le John le for Mr. Harris for Mr. hunter Gary Hunter for Thank You our next item we have is 4.02 suspension of the school or policy resolution Mr. Chairman the resolution reads as follows Newport News school board whereas on

015March 11th 2020 the World Health Organization declared novel coronavirus coded 19 outbreak a pandemic and whereas on March 12 2020 Governor route F Northam issued executive order 51 declaring a state of emergency that executive order stated that the anticipated effects of coded 19 constitute a disaster and direct directed local governments which include school boards to render appropriate assistance to prepare for the event to alleviate any conditions resulting from the situation and to implement recovery and mitigation operations and activities so as to return impacted areas to pre event conditions as much as possible and whereas executive order 51 authorized executive branch agencies including the Virginia Department of Education to waive any state regulation as appropriate and whereas on March 13 2020 the President of the United States declared a national emergency in response to the spread

016of code 19 and whereas on March 13th 20 governor Ralph s Northam ordered all K through 12 schools to close for a minimum of two weeks whereas on March 13 2024 Intendant of Public Instruction encouraged local school divisions to consider options and ideas to engage students in reading thinking and learning while schools are closed and whereas on march 18 2020 hey char 1601 was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by the president HR 6201 now PL 1 1 6 - 1 - 7 contains the emergency paid sick leave Act and the emergency Family and Medical Leave expansion act both of which will be in effect until December 31 2020 and whereas on March 23rd 2020 governor Northam issued executive order 53 which closed all public schools through the Commonwealth for the

017remainder of the 2019 2020 school year and whereas on March 30th 2020 the United States Department of Education gave permission to Virginia to cancel federally mandated standards of learning tests during the 2019 2020 school year and whereas on March 27 2020 Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction stated in superintendents memo 0 8 - - 2 0 a attachment a which was later converted into a website as being updated frequently that he will provide as much flexibility as in proof as is prudent and allowed by the Code of Virginia for students currently enrolled in graduating with the 20 with the - 2019 2020 cohort whereas PL 1 1 6 - 1 - 7 also contains the kovat 19 child nutrition response Act which gives the Secretary of Agriculture the authorities our grant waivers related to the Richard

018V Russell National School Lunch Act 42s us see 1761 which authorized Authority expires on September 30th 2020 and whereas Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction has announced that numerous regulatory requirements will be waived as authorized by executive order 51 and whereas on April 2nd 2020 the Virginia Board of Education indicated its approval for waiving certain regulatory requirements regarding awarding standard units of credit and local awards awarded verified credits and whereas additional waivers of existing state and federal regulations and changes to state and federal laws may be announced during the pandemic and whereas the Newport News School Board policies reflect requirements of state and federal laws and regulates that we have already been waived or may be waived because of the pandemic and whereas Newport New School Board's usual practice is to make changes to policies only

019after the proposed policy change is considered at - school board meetings and whereas the Newport News school board needs to be able to adapt school division operations to rapid changes in law and regulation and whereas enforcing the requirements of existing policies could result in outcomes inconsistent for current laws and regulations as they exist after waivers now therefore be it resolved that the Newport new school boards to spend such policies or provisions within policies which reflect legal and/or regulatory requirements that have been waived by the governmental authority which enacted those requirements and now therefore be it further resolved that the suspension of policies of the Newport New School Board is in effect for the duration of time that the waiver of laws and or regulations reflected in the policies are waived and now therefore be it

020further resolved that the superintendent is directed to inform the school of any regulations that are suspended by the superintendent and the duration of such suspensions and now for be a further result that the Newport News School Board will comply with temporary laws and regulations without enacting policies to implement those laws and regulations and now for therefore and therefore be it further resolved that the adoption of this resolution is conclusive evidence of the Newport new school board's approval of all the actions cited in this resolution adopted and approved this 21st day of April 2029 Chairman gary Hunter is here second I second the motion to adopt the new balls you heard the motion and you hear the second a time for the question they're being done this more Buffalo please call a roll Mr. Rawls law

021Lisa Searles law for. Dr. Best Terry best for Mrs. Alger maritza Alger for Mr. Brown Douglas Brown for Mr. Eley? John Eley for Mr. Harris for Mr. hunter Gary Hunter for thank you and thank you Ms. laws for reading that long resolution we will move on to item number five reports in information first up 5.01 cope at 19 update Thank You Mr. Chairman I have my staff prepared to provide an update a monthly update on the covert 19 crisis each of the upcoming board meetings until we are back to normal operations our staff will provide the board with a and community with an update on our efforts to continue with school operations and service to the community this presentation tonight may have a little bit more detail than future presentations but if we want to

022make sure that we're getting good information out to the community as well we ask that the board members so that the PowerPoint will stay on the screen throughout the presentation jot down any questions you may have and there will be an opportunity to ask questions as at the conclusion of the information that's provided thank you I just want to confirm that we're not having technical difficulty as I'm I think the first up is school operations okay thank you Dr. Parker good evening Mr. Hunter and members of the board this is Mary Lou vaso and I'm gonna start us off with an update on what's going on in response to the pandemic code 19 pandemic in the operations areas Michelle I think is going to advance the slides for us I can't see the slides Michelle

023I'm not sure where we are but let me start with the operation slide you have that up there we go okay all right I am pleased to have this opportunity to update you on our sports staff has been doing over the last month or so in response to this pandemic I may be justly accused of being a little bit biased I'm always proud of the work that our support staff does but certainly they've risen to this challenge I think and I've done great work over the last month to get our schools up and going I'll talk about our feeding operation Dr. Parker has mentioned a little bit about that already in just a minute but in addition to our child nutrition staff who has been making that feeding happen our transportation staff has been working

024to support that as Dr. Parker mentioned we have seven schools that are operating to prepare food as well as to serve students there but we also have 17 mobile sites and so our bus drivers and bus assistants accompanied by our security staff pick up food at the schools where it's prepared and then deliver it to our 17 mobile sites each day our custodial staff has been cleaning and disinfecting all of our workspaces after the schools closed they spent three days doing some deep cleaning in our schools and disinfect disinfecting all of our workspaces that's disinfecting has been something that has been a normal part of our cleaning protocol so we had the equipment necessary to make that happen as well as the staff know how you're even able to learn some of our equipment to

025the city so that they could disinfect some of their buildings as well in addition to our buildings our staff also disinfected our buses so we'll make sure that all of our workspaces and buses are safe for our staff and for our students a plant when services have been responding to essential maintenance needs as they arise as well as getting a jump on some major capital projects you're going to hear this evening an update on aviation academy location so I'll leave that for later we have already begun the roof replacement at Lee Hall Elementary School and we are in the process of getting started on the Deer Park and Woodside HVAC replacements normally these projects wouldn't be able to start until school is out in June and you know that sometimes we have to race against

026the clock to get the work completed before school starts again in the fall so we're hopeful that having a little more time to get these projects addressed in the current climate will allow us to be ready when school starts again in the fall in addition our technology and addition to getting the Chromebooks and hot spots out our technology staff has also been working on some projects that normally they would work on in the summer they've been getting some working with our vendors to get security-camera fire intrusion system and PA and clock system installations done again normally this would happen in the summer but having access to the schools this allowed us get started on that a little bit sooner our preventive maintenance on projectors and smart boards and other classroom technology can happen now with

027big ready access to our classrooms and as well as preventive maintenance our technology infrastructure and they have been prepping and distributing Chromebooks during Wednesday office hours shell can go to the next slide they have our technology staff has distributed already as Dr. Parker said eleven hundred and eighty Chromebooks and two hundred and fifty Wi-Fi hotspots this is in addition to the three thousand devices that are students that are at the one-to-one High School's already have at home we're learning will continue some of those distributions happen connect some of our schools before we begin Wednesday hours but they will continue now as we have Wednesday hours and in fact tomorrow we have about 500 more Chromebooks scheduled to be made available to students and another 175 hotspots so kudos to our technology staff and they have

028had some volunteers to assist them with that okay Michelle next slide I'll pause a minute look at technology catch up okay thanks Michele next I want to talk about our meals to go program our child nutrition staff jumped right on getting our meals to go up and ready I've been concerned for us once schools were closed was how our kids gets in it so that's their day-to-day work and they want to make sure it happened whether we were in school or not so that's been going on since there's on this slide that you may not know but we have been feeding from 11:30 to 12:30 from 11:30 to 1 we are now going to move starting tomorrow 11:30 to 12:30 an hour will be plenty of time for us to serve everybody and that is

029what we're going to do starting tomorrow ok Michelle we have been listening to the community as additional sites have been proposed to make sure that we have mobile sites where we where we need to to make sure kids can have ready access to food so we added just these three sites just last week a courthouse way community center Cates Trace apartments and James River flats apartments as I mentioned we are going to change the time to 11:30 to 12:30 ok Michelle these are the schools where our meals are prepared as well as the as well as students can get meals there but the meals that are served on our buses from our buses are prepared at these sites as well so as I mentioned the drivers pick up the meals at these sites and then

030take them to the mobile sites ok Michelle and these are the mobile sites that we have operating in addition to the three that are on the earlier slide so we have 17 mobile sites I didn't want to mention one more addition that we're making to our meals program this will start next Tuesday this is pretty exciting we're joining in a partnership with the world central kitchen to provide dinners on Tuesdays Thursday and Saturdays I'm sorry Tuesdays Thursdays and Fridays to our students so in addition to picking up rec instead of lunch on those days they'll also be able to pick up a dinner and they're going to provide 5,000 dinners each day Tuesday Thursday and Friday so we're very excited to get that started that will start next Tuesday 28 we have reached on average

031about five thousand meals per day you can see that we started on our first day March 17th just a little over a thousand meals and it's grown to 5,000 or more over the last month we have served 113 thousand meals start kids so thanks to the staff that has made that happen I know that our our kids and their families appreciate it okay now what I want to share with you next is a little bit about what we know and maybe as well what we don't know about how this pandemic is going to affect our funding okay so let me talk a little bit about what we do know we have received word from the state that the federal cares act will provide nine about nine point three million dollars in stimulus funding to Newport

032News public schools will have a more firm number we believe later this week we also have indications from the state that our state budget will be reduced this is for FY 21 by five point four million or so the governor has made some proposed recommendations that the General Assembly will take up tomorrow when they reconvene in Richmond and we'll find out after they reconvene what it is exactly that will happen once they're done with their work tomorrow the State Department of Ed will send us our division specific information about state budget funding for next year what the governor is planning to do at this point or at least what he's proposed to do is it's really too soon for the state to have a good handle on what will happen with revenues so rather than

033change the budget permanently for now he's going to he's recommended that they make some reductions in some areas and in some other areas they just suspend funding until they can do our we forecast of their revenue which currently they plan to do at the end of the summer and that makes perfect sense I mean until then it's hard to think that they would have a real handle on what's going to go on and what the impact on their revenue would be so that's certainly sensible but for the moment we do expect to see a reduction of 5.4 million some of that is reduction some of it is suspension in fact most of this right now characterized as a suspension of significance of course is the raise that was included in the budget and that is

034proposed to be suspended for the moment the reduction that is perhaps also of some interest is in the staffing for guidance counselor's right now suggest that not included in next year's budget so I put on here of the impact to FY 21s budget I didn't put on here but let me share with you that there is also an impact of course in FY 22 you know that the state's budget is a biennial budget at the moment the reduction that's proposed for Newport News public schools in that budget for 22 its 9.2 million dollars what we don't know yet is what the impact on this year's budget will be what we do know that there will be one perhaps as you know part of our state revenue is sales tax revenue and last year we received

035about thirty million dollars during the year of course of the year in sales tax over the last three years I'm sorry the last three months of last year we received just under eight million dollars and this year our sales tax revenue has been trending up about five and a half percent above last year's sales tax so ordinarily we would have expected absent this pandemic that we would received a little over eight million dollars in sales tax revenue for the last quarter our sales tax has received two months in arrears so for in the month of May will receive the sales tax for sales that happened in March so remember that the pandemic really started I guess in March we could say but at some of the actual closing of things didn't happen until the middle

036of the month I don't think until June when we see April's sales tax we'll have a real clear indication of what's going to happen to our sales tax of course our fiscal year ends at the end of June so the timing could be maybe worse I'm not exactly sure how but that will certainly impact our revenue for this year and again hard to say how much but let's just say if we were to receive half of our sales tax for the last three months of this year we can see a reduction of four million dollars in our revenue this year in the last quarter so we're gonna watch that very closely as you might expect and we'll be updating you of course as Dr. Parker says in future meetings about how that's going I did

037think that as we look at what to expect I would share with you some of the headlines of articles that I've been reading and you might want you might worry about some of the things I read but somebody has to read it so but for schools this recession won't be worse than the last some of you might remember the last one I know I do draconian cuts to schools could come as soon as this summer and schools are scurrying down a fiscal tsunami so so that sounds a little dire we're gonna try to take advantage of the situation like we typically do and make the best of it so we'll see what we can make happen but despite what seemed to be some challenging financial situations okay Michelle so on this slide slide you've seen

038before it's a little different this time it shows by some major state revenue categories the General Assembly approved budget and then now the governor's revision to that so as I mentioned right now the teacher pay increases proposed to be suspended for 21 that was about 2.6 million dollars for us in terms of funding the school counselors as I said he's taken out of the budget and not suspended it just proposed if those not be funded in the budget and he has included he continued to include this additional staffing for ESL and so necessarily good for us and they have made some changes to the early childhood budget but that we still will see some increase not as much as we originally anticipated another area of significant change is the at-risk add-on will see a decrease

039there but at least we'll see some additional funding so in total again our change for the general assembly budget 5.4 million dollar decrease ok Michelle and then I mention the stimulus funding and so I want to talk a little bit about that we do think right now our estimates from the state it's nine point three million dollars that we would get in terms of exactly when we get it I think it will know more about that later this week but I wanted to share with you some of the things that we were able to use this funding for they talked about the use of it allowed to be for preparedness and response efforts responding to the pandemic crisis most important for us I think is making sure that we meet the needs of our students

040so whether it's our low-income students and students with disabilities our ELT students doesn't matter just meeting the needs of all of our students it allows for us to do some training and purchasing of supplies for sanitation we think we have what we need for that so I don't think that we'll need to spend a lot of money on that we want to make sure that we spend this money most effectively so one of the things certainly that we have seen the impact of is as technology and the need for that so we hope that we'll be able to spend some of this money on more technology as well as providing mental health services and some summer learning opportunities for our kids we do have more unknowns at this time of year than we usually do

041but just know that we are working overtime to figure out just how we can make things work in this challenging environment so to tell you more about what learning is going to continue to look like as we move forward here's dr. pol Thank You Mr. so good evening Chairman Hunter Vice Chair Charles law board members in Dr. Parker I'm here this evening to review the continuity of learning plan I'd like to start by sharing information that has led us to the continuity of learning plan that was a release last week first and foremost was the four pronged approach laid out by the Virginia Department of Education dr. Lane shared that students had to had the opportunity to learn the standards not yet taught by the school closures after March 13th 2020 he said divisions had

042four options of covering the material that had not yet been talked these options are for divisions to provide instruction of new material during the closure to provide instruction during this summer to adjust the 2021 school year calendar or to incorporate learning modules into the 2021 school year to cover the miss learning as you'll hear during this presentation we have chosen to incorporate three of these four options for our students to give them the most flexibility in addition since the closure we have provided teachers with several opportunities to learn best practices for online instructional practice as well as proper use of zoom and how to offer feedback through electronic means we will continue to offer sessions through the spring for all teachers on a weekly basis beginning with the elementary plan there are four phases that

043I would like to share first from March 16th through April 27 the learning packets have been focused only on a spiral to review of topics for students all of the packet learning was based on standards that have been taught and assessed up to March 13th these were posted online and printed for parents to pick up at the students home school or at the food distribution sites next starting April 27th which is next week through the end of the school year learning packets will continue however those packets will incorporate a spiral review for math and reading with some new learning for social studies and science this new learning is paired with using the five seas and will offer opportunities for students to earn certificates as well as badges during the fourth quarter then we are planning

044for some type of summer learning experience for students this experience will depend on what social distancing will look like this summer third quarter report cards will have recommendations for summer school sent to students who are struggling as of March 13th as we learn more we'll update the board on what summer school may look like this summer finally all of the fall elementary curriculum is being modified to include the missing standards from the 2019 2020 school year this will ensure that all of our students have the necessary supports in place to learn the missed topics for March 13th through the end of the school year the next set of packets will include the suggested daily learning plan with structuring their try to help parent structure their child learning the Koba 19 academic plan site includes several

045suggestions for STEM physical activity music art and social-emotional activities which are also listed on this suggested daily learning plan the elementary plan also lays out expectations for learning that include using the daily learning plan reviewing the teachers feedback on assignments and to contact teachers during office hours for additional assistance there's been additional support for our English language learners including mailing packets directly to our newcomers translating all of our work to Spanish and providing online support with our ell teachers later in the presentation you'll hear specific information on supports being provided to our students with disabilities during the fourth quarter elementary students will not receive grades nor will this negatively affect their final grade students receive ti for work turned in where the student has submitted the recommended number of assignments each week and responded to

046feedback from their teachers and NT for any work not turned in where the student has not submitted the assignments from the instructional learning packets final grades will be determined through the average of the grades from the first three cores although third quarter has ended students can submit work to improve their grade up to May 15th the third quarter grading window will open at that time and teachers will be allowed to use the submitted work to improve students grades again no grades will be lower than what a student had as of March 13th moving on the secondary plan you will see there are four phases here as well for March 16th through April 7 teachers reached out to students and provided some online support for learning as devices were being checked out to any student who

047needed one nothing assigned was graded unless it helped a student's grade for the third quarter this week on Monday started the fourth quarter plan for all secondary students this plan includes virtual lessons that consists of live video conferencing with a teacher pre-recorded video lessons to view independent work that students will complete on their own and/or projects that allow for voice and choice and assignments there are new learning topics being covered since we are able to check out devices to students to need them there's an expectation of a level of mastery on assigned work in order for a student to earn a final grade for their current classes if the student does not complete the work or show mastery there'll be a plan in place for summer learning whether it's face-to-face or online if they are

048not able to attend the summer learning opportunity modules will be developed for students to complete in the fall one of the items we noticed early on was the overlapping of zoom appointments for students they were just way too busy and overbooked they would have multiple classes happening at the same time this led to a schedule to be developed that started this week for all secondary schools this one is the middle school schedule you can see students have lessons each day based on their time and their content so for example on Monday is the math day so if you're a sixth grader your teacher will be online and live Mondays from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. and that's where you'll receive some math instruction for the week Tuesday they'll receive their science and you can see how

049the how it goes and then we have office hours on here and planning time on here for teachers that's also where we'll be offering professional development to our teachers for online instructional practice here's the high school schedule that follows their block schedules when developing the schedules consideration was also given to families with multiple students and only having possibly one device in many instances therefore we tried to make it so it didn't overlap although there are some circumstances where it has to overlap on the secondary or the high school schedule rather you can see that we follow the school's block schedules and again on Friday we try to leave that open for some PLC's and planning and additional office hours professional development for our teachers as with elementary students there's an expectation of learning for secondary

050students there are to check email twice daily work to complete and strive for mastery on all assignments review the teachers feedback on the assignments review the zooms schedule to participate in live lessons contact teachers for their instructional assistance during their office hours contact your your school counselor for special circumstances contact your teacher or principal if you don't have a device or internet service use the resources on the nnts home page for enrichment and then exercise and do something fun and take time to unplug daily - because we don't want the student sitting front over screen for seven hours a day either since the fourth quarter allows students to submit work for grading as you'll hear about in a few slides teachers will assess students to master in a variety ways to include online mini assessments

051performance-based assessments where students could do video responses they could be artistic or musical representations they have options for writing like quick writes or reflective writing personal writing in journals or graphic organizers student selected activities to complete and we're also utilizing a great variety of our division purchased online programs such as IXL or no red ink achieve 3000 and imagine learning a few points of additional information the video II has waived all industry certification requirements for our seniors and a plan is being developed for underclassmen driver's education is being offered synchronously online to meet the requirement of the minimum of thirty hours of instruction therefore our students who are in driver's ed or supposed to be in it during the fourth quarter will still receive that instruction and although how to complete is behind the wheel

052I know that was a large concern of our community this will allow students to complete with what they had to complete during the third quarter or or have the full course as you may have seen IBS cancelled their exams and students for ap will be able to take their exams at home online they have the option finally students enrolled in virtual Virginia courses as well as dual enrollment courses will follow the guidelines provided by each organization to complete their courses however we put the same specifications in place on our end that the students grades could not be hurt by the end if they're if they're struggling for a reason of the code nineteen close down for marking period three students who earn their grade as of March thirteenth however students will be allowed to submit

053missing assignments to improve their third quarter grade up to May fifteenth when the grading window for third quarter will open again for teachers again students may only improve based off of work completed so if their grades were set March thirteenth and they didn't want to increase it they won't but nothing from that point forward we'll all be allowed to decrease their third quarter grade secondary students will have the opportunity to earn numerical grades during the fourth quarter they must show mastery of learning new material or they will receive an incomplete which would make the students eligible for summer school or the learning module in the fall to show the mastery of learning that was missed teachers will record as a TI for turned in or an T for not turned in prior to grading the

054assignments as long as a student submits their work and shows a monican level of mastery they will successfully successfully complete their course if they were in good standing as of March 13th final grades for secondary students will be administered in two ways which ever benefits the student if their grade was better through my teeth they are in that great if fourth quarter grades benefit the students then they'll be averaged into the students final grades at this time I'd like to turn it over to dr. Mitchell who's going to share some information on special education and social-emotional learning thank you thank you good evening Chairman Hunter Vice Chair Sorrells law board members in Dr. Parker today I am pleased to share with you information about our special education learning plan and social-emotional supports the ad home

055plan expectations for students with disabilities there is the ones reviewed by dr. pol earlier in the presentation with the exception of modified schedules students and families should review feedback on all assignments from teachers and contact the teacher if extra help is needed during office hours in cases when the general educational learning plan needs to be modified we've done so already in the learning package because it may be necessary to accommodate for individual needs such as short breaks or work spread out over a longer period of time many of the packets for students with disabilities outline or suggest a different pacing for a daily routines during at home learning we have also mailed packets to students when necessary teachers have been in contact with parents and parents have informed them whether or not they are able

056to get to the school in order to receive a packet if they're not able to get to the school the teachers email me and then I make sure that the packet is put in the mail and their parents receive it via the mail so some of the structure for the actual learning plan may vary depending on the need so please keep in mind that approximately 60% of our students with disabilities actually access the general education curriculum with supports and the remainder of the students are supported through the use of an adapted or modified curriculum so our secondary students with disabilities who are accessing the general curriculum they continue to participate in online learning with their peers still having access to some of the things dr. pol mentioned like no read aim for our I excel

057but they continue to be supported by their special education teachers and their content teacher through Google classroom zoom meanings as well as a variety of other means the students receive their accommodations as appropriate our elementary students with disabilities who access the general curriculum receive grade-level packets and are supported by their special education teacher via virtual options once again such as zoom or videotapes guided lessons and telephone support for students who don't have access to a device they work in tandem with the general education teacher parents and they also provide accommodations now our students with disabilities who are accessing a modified or adapted curriculum have received packets that are with their ability level and teachers are utilizing once again virtual and telephone options for example we may have a 20 year old student whose cognitive functioning

058is similar to that maybe five year old his or her packet is designed for that level of functioning modifications are already embedded in the packet activities and are specific to each group of students individualization of all the packets is then determined by the special education teacher and communicated to the parent in addition to providing guidance for the parent the special education teacher may model the skill have a direct small group instructional lesson through virtual tools learning supports and active and accommodations are provided for the students and I think it's important to note that they really are based on student needs every student doesn't necessarily have the same accommodation we have provided a link on the elementary and secondary at home fourth quarter document that was published last week to enable parents of students with disabilities

059to email my department directly if they have a problem or concern so that we can respond to each situation on a case-by-case basis so the link is there they can just click on that link put in what their concern is and it is directly sent to my department similar to summer planning shared by dr. pol we are planning and looking at options for extended year services for students with disabilities so let's talk about what might look different some of the packets are the same some of the work is the same but as noted earlier many of our students with disabilities access the general curriculum while others do not however those students do have access to accommodations modifications and adaptations that make the plan different in an effort to continue to support the needs of our

060students we have also created an instructional support law so special education teachers are documenting their time spent with students whether they are engaged in a learning plan packet or engage in online learning lesson so as you can see there are a wide range of accommodations that can be used when appropriate and some of them include video captioning for our students read Aloud's for our students and access to an interpreter when needed this is an example of the elearning log that special education teachers are using to document their work with students as you can see it is fairly specific regarding what activity the time the accommodation modification the individualized support and the students respond response special education teachers will submit this log electronically to their supervisors bi-weekly that will give us an opportunity to even look

061at which students are we possibly not reaching we have had some students who have moved and we have not been able to connect with them I spoken quite a bit about the accommodations tonight I wanted to share examples of several that are a part of the packet each at home learning packet for the modified or adapted curriculum has an age-appropriate accommodation sheet that the teacher and parent have access to all teachers have gone back into synergy and re reviewed their IEP and have a comprehensive list of each student's individual accommodation so that they can provide the appropriate support and guidance for students and parents I wanted to share with you a picture of one of our special education teachers providing instruction that she created using a variety of technology tools she used screencastify and Smart

062Notebook a few other examples of ways that teachers are supporting students maybe by recording books and/or passages small group virtual lessons Google classroom and individualized accommodations including visual support similar to the one that is or shown here this is an example that came from one of our packets students have a math assignment on less than and more than but for students were requiring visual supports they received an additional chart that prompts and gives them a visual to assist them I would like to close out this portion of the presentation by sharing an experience that I had yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a special education class meeting or a class at Denby High School it was at 2 o'clock which on the schedule that dr. pol shared 2 o'clock is an instructional time for

063that particular group of students that is their physical education time so the adaptive PE teacher had a lesson and all students with the exception of one who had a doctor's appointment were able to log on and participate in physical activity I participated as well there was a lot of fun the speech pathologist was there to engage with students around speech the classroom teacher and the instructional assistant was there as well I'm now going to move on to our social emotional supports we thought it was very important to share with you the social emotional supports that we have available we have a number of staff members that are involved with the supports for students families and staff these staff members include teachers professional school counselors youth development leads social workers psychologists and our licensed clinicians the

064supports can really be grouped into five areas our professional school counselors and student support specialists have conducted virtual sessions with students to allow students a safe place to talk about their concerns and experiences staff are making direct contact with parents and students to discuss concerns regarding needs students also have the opportunities to schedule their own appointments with the student support specialists the student support specialists have continued throughout the pandemic to meet with the students that were previously on their case load prior to the school closure but now we're providing an opportunity for other students to have a time and a space that works for them so the student logs on fills out an appointment time and then they have a zoom conference with their student support specialists there are a number of online resources that

065we have posted for parents and students with activities and resources for students to support their social and emotional well-being and the last section is that a designated point of contact we have a point of contact from the mental health team that has been assigned to each school to assist students and families with crisis situations the contact information is posted on the n NPS learning plan website principals also make referrals to the point of contact in addition the mental health team is calling a minimum of five students and parents a day to check in on their well-being the list of contacts has also been shared with some local churches and additionally we have a point of contact for working with the city agencies so we have a point of contact who is working with Human Services

066Department to include our work with the community services board to get mental health support for our students CPS foster care the court services and the police department just a name a few to wrap up the social-emotional supports provided I am really honored to share some work that has been led by Bridget Adams from school leadership youth development assembled a team of students teachers and student advancement department staff members to brainstorm ways to promote positivity and emotional well-being for students and families the team proposed that social-emotional learning and support resources be added to the at home resources provided to families these resources include tips on coping with change and community context we Bridget added supplemental resources for families that provide ideas for kua family time and those that promote emotional health are posted as well to

067promote positivity and provide opportunities to help students teachers and staff to stay connected the connect webinar or zoom webinar system was created there are so many I'm going to try to just share a few with you the first one we had a student host and he he had a guest Michael Smith a national speaker the second one dr. jerome was the host with a guest speaker who was also a national speaker dr. philip campbell for today for staff our very own superintendent Dr. Parker was the guest and coming up soon for our staff we will have a guest dr. Janice Underwood who is a chief diversity equity and inclusion officer for the state of Virginia coming up next for our students is going to be a conversation with student advancement staff members focused on how

068students are feeling and strategies for coping and then we have n NPS together activity of the day which provides an activity that is recommended that everyone can do together the class of 2020 task force which Dr. Parker has held two forums with seniors to gather their insights about graduation and other issues affecting them as a result result of this pandemic 15 students will work together as a part of a task force to help design and implement senior activities for the remainder of the year and another exciting new project is the vibe a student design webpage and talk show so I'm going to leave you with a quote I won't read it to you but we have a quote from a student support specialist who had the opportunity to visit a special education classroom and surprise

069the students the students were engaged but they were very appreciative that she spent the hour with them talking about their concerns and they shared with her what was going on so students are engaged students you know that they have staff that are to support their social emotional well-being and at this time I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Wright to talk about at-home technology support well I think thank you dr. Mitchell good evening Chairman Hunter Vice Chair Searles law board members in Dr. Parker actually going to speak on our school office hours on Wednesday April 15th our schools began hosting office hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. by appointment only the school leadership team has collaborated with Health Services custodial services central records and school security to develop protocols to ensure safe and

070secure operations in MPs has followed very clear protocols to implement social distancing and minimize the number of people present during school office hours appointments have been scheduled 45 minutes apart parents Guardians have also used this time to schedule appointments to begin the registration or withdrawal process or to pick up medications or medical equipment no our Wednesday office hours have been for essential business only and have not been used for teacher workdays classroom cleanup days or an opportunity to retrieve non-essential items from classrooms or lockers in the coming weeks after restrictions have been lifted we will implement a schedule for staff and students to return to the building it's a complete such task and to give you an idea of who reports on Wednesdays we have an administrator which could be the principal assistant principal in

071addition we have our staff members the president to ensure the following functions are executed customer service which could be answering phones and email sorting mail scheduling appointments student registration withdrawal financial transactions bookkeeping medication pickup as I mentioned in school counseling for secondary schools only to assist with the registration process including questions about course schedules and graduation requirements our custodians are working split shifts on Wednesdays and Thursdays in addition an assigned security officer and TSS will report every Wednesday to every school to provide assistance with the office items at this time can answer any questions you may have regarding our kovat 19 update this evening thank you for your patience we also have wet our website links here on the screen for you Mr. Chairman I do have a few questions okay Mr. Brown you got

072the floor all right so just going back to the the Wi-Fi distribution can we get an estimate or an update at some point in the future what percentage of our six through twelfth graders have we've confirmed they either have a device in the home or they have access to Wi-Fi so just in terms of this is 99% then we're working with another additional 10 or so students or you know just getting an idea of where we stand and in terms of attendance and the percentage of kids doing online login so in relation to attendance that we're tracking this year through the end of the school year are we doing attendance based upon when a child logs in online or is it going to be based upon receiving the packets so essentially how are we tracking

073attendance and tracking a truancy rate or students Mr. Brown under these conditions we are we do not have a technically defined truancy rate for for student participation because the work that is be expected to be turned in will be given the grades associated with tion T so the teachers are asked to 1a notify the administration if there are any students who are not engaging with them whether it's a virtual class if there is a student who's not participating because we that is how we're identifying students who may not have who may have technology issues also from the elementary level you know since students since it's just packet distribution conferencing and pick up it's it's hard to hold attendance for under those certain circumstances so under under these circumstances were not necessarily taking daily attendances but

074it's about getting workout opportunities for instruction and to get students feedback on their work regarding the percentage I think we have done a survey in the past regarding that Mister actually Chris will answer that question regarding to technology access hello Mr. brown what we did last year serve our students we found in the responses that about six percent reported not having some type of internet access at home and I think I've shared that in conversations with you in the past as we started issuing devices to students after the school closure and surveying them about what their needs were we found that about 15 percent of the students who needed a Chromebook also reported needing some type of hotspot from us so moving forward we think that that is the number that we're going to go

075with is that the estimate is going to be about 15 percent of our students as we do these kind of initiatives are going to probably need some kind of assistance with with internet access and we have Chromebooks in hot spots to 15% or dangerously no sir I wouldn't say dangerously high what we're doing now and I think we've shared this with some folks is that we're having encouraging families to contact their secondary school students there are families contact the principal and then the principal puts the student on a waiting list and also on that waiting list they tell us what they need they need a Chromebook they need a hot spot do they need both and so far we've been able to keep up with that number I think a couple of folks have already

076shared some of those numbers this evening and we're also moving towards distributing we've done several large-scale distributions and now we've moved towards distributing devices at the schools that the students attend so we'll be doing that during Wednesday office hours by appointment only any other questions yes I have a question it's kind of follow-up to Mr. Brown's questions regarding attendance is there any follow-up if you find out if a teacher on you said you have teachers to let you know students are not logging in is there any follow-up and what is the procedure and who's responsible for following not and we know that work is not graded as well but if there's a even elementary students that are not making any type of contact with the teacher if there is that note somewhere and is any

077type of follow-up being done to see possibly where that student is possibly why dr. pencil I'll start off if dr. pol wants to chime in he's welcome to do so that's one of the reasons why we started - Wednesday hours was to make sure that we have some staff footprint in our school communities on a weekly basis and our school counseling program is up and running to ensure that if we are made aware and our school social workers are also contacting and working with students on a caseload as well so if we are made aware that a student is not engaged with instruction that those are the resources that we're that we're that we're utilizing to try to identify whether there's a need in the home whether there's some level of crisis or trauma taking

078place in the home but in in every different household it's going to be different sometimes it's just a matter of I think we received an email today where it just was the parent was not available to have the kid online that accessing accessing the teacher at that time so there's going to be some communication between the teacher our school counselors and administration to try to ensure that we keep as many kids engaged during this crisis as possible with their with their instructional program but that's what we're relying on at this particular point are clinically licensed social workers maintain a caseload so they are contacting those students I think dr. Mitchell can confirm weekly if I'm if I if I'm correct to see how those students are doing and whether they're engaged with instruction as well

079as some of our other students who are caseloads for for various reasons and if I could just add dr. Park do you you hit pretty much everything but I did want to add that this coming up week its senior staff and then at the principal packet memo on Thursday we're gonna send out an internal survey to our teachers to see and it's gonna give it's gonna have it's gonna be roster it's gonna be easy point-and-click it's gonna give them their student roster ask them if they've if they've heard from the student if they're getting work from the student and it's also going to ask them to go back to Mr. Brown's question you know do you know do they have internet access yes no where I don't know so we can get even further down

080into the weeds to know exactly what we have going on but that'll be going out next week to do that and then Dr. Best we're also with our specialists or interventionalists everybody that we can get on task to reach out to those students we're doing everything we possibly can including a few that have reached out to us saying that they just have trouble is even getting out or don't want to get out to get the packets we've started mailing some packets it on a small scale to those who have a high need that we're trying to respond to as much as we can Missy Rose laws mister Jenkins I'm wondering here is our biggest issue going to be not identifying the students or not having the devices when we do identify the students how are

081we looking in terms of having them on hands I think we're in very good shape so far with some of the technology purchases that we've made we've been able to identify some devices in the schools that we can continue to issue as principals and families identify their needs I think we're in very good shape the big challenge becomes the cost of the Wi-Fi hotspots you know it's a very expensive endeavor we're looking at some other long-term solutions but as a stopgap measure we have purchased several hundred hotspots and we're in competition with a lot of other school districts which are finding that those hotspots are backordered times until May we were very fortunate to be able to purchase we placed an order very early with our with Verizon and we're able to get 300 in

082and have since issued all of those to the students so we have a great team over in the technology department and they're staying on top of it and doing the best they can to make sure that our students have everything they need we appreciate your guidance and your work through that process my other question has to go towards the federal cares Act so are they are there limits on when or how that money can be not how it can be used but duration so is it till the end of this school year or is it through the needs of the pandemic the the challenges that the pandemic have caused when how long can we use that nine million how long can we hold on to it to use it for these needs we really haven't

083been given all the rules yet for the money okay but we will hopefully find that out next week from the state and my guess is assistance it's federal money it maybe have a federal timeline but I rather doubt that they'll expect to just use all that by the end of this federal cycle so the state has also set aside some of the federal timelines for some of our other federal grant money since we're not in session currently they have suspended some of the timelines as well as some of the carry forward limits that go along with some more federal funding so I expect that they'll do something that if it's reasonable to give us plenty of time to spend it and as I mentioned in addition to next year's budget being effective it looks like

08422s but it will be effective as well yeah and so you know I expected it maybe we may be allowed to use it over both cycles and perhaps we could maybe hope for more since I think that our loss will be greater than what we think we're going to get from the care that currently thank you very much dr. bass I do have another question and this one I think is for dr. Mitchell regarding the modification in the learning packets is that since the second set of learning packets have been distributed and the reason why I asked is because my self I'm sure a couple of other board members have received emails regarding their learning packet being the same for every student no that has not been since then what I think those parents who

085may have contacted you their students may be accessing the general curriculum so they should have the same packet as the students who are sitting in their third grade class so they might be in a co-teaching class so they would still get the third grade packet but then the special education teacher should be working with the family to make those modifications for example if Mr. Brown is supposed to read the entire of five passages Lisa Searles law might need to read two of those passages and the teacher really should be working not only with the general education teacher but also with the parents of the parent knows that that is the case but you are correct in that the second packet we added a modification sheet so that not only should the teacher be telling the

086parent but it is right there for the parent to know as well so yes we did add that since the second one and we hope we hope that we're just going to get better and better at it you're welcome are there any more questions Mr. Eley Thank You Mr. Chairman I know that we're not planning on this pandemic lasting past the summer listening to the news but our work measures are we take into take place to be proactive and encase this program because going on in september/october steel well I where all of our children have access to learn at home as well I'll start on that question obviously we're looking at technology purchases and that's a possibility with the stimulus package that's that were made available there's going to be obviously some competition between school

087divisions to access devices so we've kind of got early jump on on increasing our inventory we've also as we rolled out the continuity a learning plan in particular at elementary you can see that we've already started planning for additional for a curriculum from the fourth quarter to be introduced in the fall at the initial at the students next grade level in terms of elementary because we know there's a break in the continuity of learning for this year we want to make sure that students are still exposed to the curriculum from the fourth quarter in the fall of next year as well but also reinforcing and providing the necessary instruction for students to reach some level of mastery for what they were responsible for learning this year when instruction was taking place so that plan takes

088us into next year and it's just a matter nail as far as what timeline the virus will impact the start of the school year we're also planning for reinforced instruction over the summer we're looking at out what kind of summer model will need to take place whether we're able to meet physically or or virtually so we are our plans are to start preparing for not for life become after this crisis is over with and when we need to know what will instruction look like and how will we ensure that our students are getting the upper hand on their learning this Ms. outer do you have a question yes Oh Marilu I just wanted to find out in terms of the monies are we spending or are things frozen at this time as far as expenses

089and also with title 1 budgets what's going to happen with that is that something that will be impacted as well well the title 1 money has been the restrictions on that have been lifted as some of the other federal funds so we'll be given a little more time to spend that and the carryforwards as I mentioned have been restrictions have been looked at as well with regard to the current year we are of course going to watch our spending because of the sales tax drop that we expect to see of course we do still have some things that we need to get done you're going to hear later this evening an update on the Aviation Academy and we have requested some assistance on that funding from the city but we don't have a commitment yet

090we still have to get that done so we've got to provide for that as dr. parker mentioned we have made some technology purchases to make sure that we've positioned our secondary students at least to be able to access learning from home and so we expect by sometime this summer assuming that the bending gods are good to us that we'll have Chromebook devices for all six to twelve students whether or not we'll be able to have enough devices for them to access the Internet that is different issue and we aren't working on that Chris and his staff have some ideas and they're working a pilot on that to see if we can extend our network into some of the neighborhoods so we'll see how that pans out at least they should have devices but yes we

091are gonna have it's gonna be very it always this time of year it's a very careful time of year to make sure that our funding and our expense are just matched up at the end you don't usually have this situation with sales tax that we're gonna have to watch we're gonna watch that very carefully we're doing an abundance of planning so that we can make the important things happen you know we also have some savings which if you saw in your financial report for this evening we've identified some of those so we got rolling buses so we're not buying fuel we're not paying overtime to certain staff members that otherwise would be getting overtime we've got all of our buildings at set back and so our heating cooling costs are less than otherwise they would

092be both parts we're not buying so we are gonna see some reduction in some cost as well so weird defying all of those and trying to make it all at the end it'll be okay thank you any other questions there being on thank you for that great report now we're going to move the agenda on 25.0 to human resource retention recruitment updates good evening good evening everyone stephanie Hots and i'm really excited to be here with you this afternoon michelle is getting the presentation together Thank You Michelle good evening Dr. Parker Chairman Hunter vice Chairman Searles law and board members this evening I'm going to share an update regarding the recruitment and staffing work and we produce public schools we will talk briefly about the staffing afford our current school year we'll talk about the

093work that needs to be done to prepare for the 2021 school year and how that looks different in our current work environment and finally I'll provide a short update on the impact of Co good night TV on our staff to remind you these are there are recruiting priorities for our current school year and will remain is our priorities as we move to the 2021 school year we continue to work to hire the best of the best we continue to work on the diversity of our teaching staff we made some strides with our minority hiring with this year's new hires we increase from 37 percent minority hires in 1819 to 44 percent minority hires for the 1920 school as we as the teacher shortage continues to get worse are hard to fill areas to continue to

094grow but we need we will continue to work on filling those and although we did not fill all of our vacancies this school year we continue to strive towards that goal for the coming year we started the school year with fifteen classroom vacancies on the first day of school unfortunately for the first time in over a decade that I've been working with staffing the number of students who arrived in our schools was higher than we anticipated this resulted in us increasing the number of number of classrooms especially in our elementary schools where we work to meet k3 class size reduction levels this along with the increased need of needs of our special education students resulted in us adding many new teacher positions to our schools unfortunately licensed teachers were not available to fill all of

095these new positions and we had to use long term substitutes for those roles you can see from the data that with those additional positions along with our normal attrition we left on March the 13th with a number of vacancies which is very unusual for us so now as we work on hiring for 2020 2021 we're looking at trends to assist us with our planning at this point we are not seeing any increases over the past few years and our resignations or retirements information from our intent process has indicated similar if not slightly lower rates of intense not to return we have at this point had less retirements and several requests to resend resignations because of the impact of Kovach 19 so we predict that our turnover rate will be lower than this past year Dr.

096Parker shared this data with you in City Council back in February the data demonstrates the impact of the teacher shortage and the importance of staying competitive with our salaries you can see that the number of teachers that we lost to other school divisions was always less than the number that we hired from other school divisions until this past year so it appears that we've lost our advantage in hiring experienced teachers who typically make up at least 50% of our new hires each year you may be wondering how are we going to be able to hire and be ready to start the 2020 2021 school year first of all the entire HR staff is working full-time from home we are being responsive to staff regarding their employment and benefits needs as well as recruiting and hiring

097staff let's look at how our recruiting plans have changed because of our new work environment we still use our expert interview teams to hire for the division however now they are being conducted virtually we started about five years ago with centralized interview teams which are composed of principals curriculum and development staff and HR staff employment offers are made for the division and then assignments to schools are then determined by the principal's based on best fit the over 20 recruiting trips that have been planned to colleges and universities this spring were all canceled instead we have begun participating in virtual job fairs that are sponsored by other organizations education weekly American Association of Education in the University of North Carolina are three that we have just recently participated in the three recruiting events that we had

098planned are now going to be done virtually as well we have purchased software so that we can host our own virtual job fairs we anticipate completing implementation by the end of the month and then hosting our first event the first week of May the software will also add a chat box feature to our HR web page where potential candidates will have the ability to check with one of our HR staff members during office hours when we are not online there's an artificial intelligence component that will respond for us so that we can follow up later we will also have the ability to communicate via text messaging with candidates our recruiting tools that we've used have included different hiring sites such as teacher to teacher and deed and career builders we've also used social media and

099website tools such as LinkedIn Facebook our own website and University websites and we've had a variety of media advertise using that we have used such as radio online online news sources as well as press releases we've now expanded these tools our advertising now includes includes TV commercials we are also accessing a new technology called retargeting this sends our recruiting ads to anyone online looking at educational jobs on sites like Indy as well as when anyone does general internet job searches we have also added to our functionality with LinkedIn this allows us to use search functions and the ability to send email blasts to those groups and handshake which is a career search tool that University University career centers have been using without a lot of success up until ovid nineteen hit well now handshake is

100the major tool available to college students and we are making our presence known on handshake and of course we will continue with the incentives that we're providing to candidates that includes our hard to fill incentives early offer incentives the stem state incentives that are available our relocation umber sment sand of course opportunities through summer employment and the jumpstart program that provides funding for provisioning licensed teachers to earn their full license I do want to share a couple of new initiatives for this coming year which are part of what we call our grow our own program or I've also used the term future teacher programs in addition to the multiple programs we have with our local universities we work with our current staff that are not teachers which primarily includes our instructional assistants and we work

101with them to make them teachers we began last summer with our first special education cohort we had 17 instructional assistants and long-term substitutes to make required to take excuse me requires special education coursework with Old Dominion that is needed to qualify for their promotion provisional license and special education this group has worked hard in their classrooms with the support and the assistance of their principals and special education department they are accessing our Jump Start program for provisioning licensed teachers in order to earn their full Virginia license we have two new programs that we're beginning in the spring we're working on this spring one is the Newport News public schools career switcher program in partnership with Old Dominion University we will have up to 20 staff members earn their careers which are license in time to

102become teachers for the 2021 school year and finally we are on the development stage of a program that will target our current employees and their efforts to become elementary teachers this is a little bit of a more difficult program because the licensure requirements for elementary teachers is much more difficult to meet if you're not in a traditional program we're going to figure it out and have our staff become elementary teachers we will continue to increase the number of teacher residents and Newport News public schools as a reminder teachers and residents are paid co-teaching internships guided by a highly skilled teacher coach while completing required coursework with the partner University this program prepares highly qualified teachers to serve in critical shortage areas we have partnered with Old Dominion University and Christopher Newport University to create these

103programs currently we are in our third year of having a resident program and that program has grown from only five residents the first year to 10 this year and we are budgeted for next year to have a total of 16 residents for the new 2021 school year and to kind of tie things up I wanted to share a little bit about the communication and the work that we're doing with our staff during the pandemic first of all since March 13th the human resources department has provided multiple communications with staff regarding the impact of the governor's orders related to over 19 our workforce is fortunate during this difficult time that Newport News public schools has been able to keep their contracted employees working and therefore pay during the school closure as we either work from home

104or continue the critical functions of the school division at our sites humans has communicated and then worked with employees that have situations that interfere with their work responsibilities the family first act as well as the extended family act have provided us in addition to new produce public schools generous leave policies ways to provide for our employees and their individual situations we have also provided several communications to staff around wellness and their benefits and will continue those efforts as we move forward we are all dealing with new stresses with the stay at home water and we are trying to assist with ideas and resources to our staff as they figure out how to adapt to this new normal the school closures have caused some unique challenges as it relates to the requirements of professional instructional staff

105the communication is also scheduled to go out this week which will address some of the concerns that our instructional staff have regarding licensure renewals and evaluations that are both required for this required by the state staff may access information on our website and that is listed there for you as well as may contact you to email addresses ask HR and ask and ask benefits also provided there is a phone number where we have voicemail capability in order for our employees to be able to reach us and for us to respond as quickly as possible to their needs so that's my quick update this evening and so I'm glad to answer any questions that you have are there any questions okay dr. Bess thank you I have a question regarding residency career switcher and regarding you

106spoke about increasing diversity amongst the teachers are cultivating relationships with Hampton University and Norfolk State University to bring them on board to participate in programs like that yes ma'am we are we do a lot of Norfolk State in Hampton University in fact we go to their campus to actually conduct interviews with their student teachers every year in addition to providing staff and other professionals to speak it practical meetings and classwork as well as continue to look at at what we can do collaboratively in terms of programs like possibly the residency or some of the other programs we have yes man we are in constant contact with both of those universities this is out of jail yes wanted to find out is it possible to start recruitment at a high school I know that might sound

107a little bit absurd but I wonder if we can I mean is that a consideration is that something that we've thought about you know and I shouldn't use the word absurd I think it's it's creative if we chose yes ma'am currently we have a very strong internship program at all of our high schools and one of the areas in which a large number of our students participate in an internship is those who want to be teachers I know when I was at Woodside high school we had a lot of students who you know walked right down right over to Greenwood and spent time and during their internship there we have lots of situations like that we are also working on a teacher's for tomorrow course the high school principals are working with me and of

108course curriculum and development to look at how do we get back credit bearing course back into popularity I guess we had had something similar to it many years ago and just kind of fell out of favor with kids and that's a lot how it works in high schools but now pushing to do that back in our high school since we have such a strong internship program now we were pretty confident this is the key time to go ahead and and make that push in our high school program principals have been very supportive of the work we've begun there we're just not there quite yet but that isn't our intention a lot of those programs can results in dual enrollment and college credit as well as some other and then they could very well feed into

109some of the residency programs that we already have established so yeah we work really hard with our own students so to keep them connected a lot of them work in spark in the summer time so it's a way that we stay connected with them and then very quickly try to connect them back to full-time employment when they finish school Thank You Mr. Brown yes thank you I wanted to say it was a very informative report going back to the previous slides where he included the achievement recruitment and retention rates I know that that's something that I've asked about previously and to have multiple years included that was very helpful and then as well to see the number of resignations and retirements and the percentage and being able to see the trend there that was very

110helpful for me to give me context as to where we are right now so I just want to say that was very informative thank you for that you're welcome anyone else there be no thank you for that report okay we will continue with the agenda 5.03 Aviation Academy update and I believe Mr. Beverly good evening Mr. Chairman so Chairman board members and Dr. Parker the trust everybody is staying safe and well I'm going to give you an aviation academy relocation update uh first what I wanted to do is talk about I know we have a new board member since we met last at a work session prior to Christmas so this elder this is kind of for you why are we doing this so most of you remember the old terminal was built back in

1111949 and so she's getting some age honor or due to the age we've had several HVAC problems in the past couple years Eva we spent a little over a quarter of a million dollars last year just trying to maintain the space if you'll remember they lost a major HVAC air handler unit on the people's side back in the spring going into summer of nineteen and this required a lot of the area that we leased to lose HVAC or climate control so in light of that we ended up having to purchase portable HVAC units to provide climate control for those areas the roof system is is is majorly deteriorated the we it's causing interior structural damage just last year before going into the winter time frame we had a health inspection and the kitchen exhaust system

112failed compliance so we had to secure cooking in the kitchen area and store a CNS had to start brown bagging lunches in and to kind of cap that off the peninsula Airport Commission informed us that they cannot be in a negative lease and so what that meant was as they were unable to sign a lease with us so we don't have a lease there and they want us out by June 30th so that's what we're committed to trying to meet the deadline next slide there please so what have we accomplished since we met at the workstation work session back in November we present it y'all with a conceptual design plan that plan has pretty much held true we finalized floor plans and we've approved all of those I would like to thank dr. blue and

113dr. Smith for their major role in making this happen working with their staff we've we've ensured that everything that they've had or they had at the existing Aviation Academy they will have at the new facility in the back of Debi high school so that's great purchase orders have been made centennial contractors will be the general contractor doing the major portion of the work and Vanguard modular will be for the general contractor for providing to learning colleges about that so all this comes with a cost the a classroom modular is 533 thousand and I'm gonna get into that in just a little bit and show you what that includes in another slide but we'll just kind of peruse through this and as you can see I won't sit here and read them all off to you

114but those sort of figures and when we first talked about this back in November we had kind of predicted that it was going to be somewhere between 1.5 1.7 million and right now it's coming in about one point six three six so we're kind of in line with what we thought it was going to cost and so everything is going according as planned right now I believe Dr. Parker has been working with the city and requesting some funds to try to help with the project but I don't believe there's anything any response or commitment yeah with that with that said we'll move on and so what you're looking at is an aerial view of the back of Denby High School and you can see that the eight classroom modular units sitting there what we'll have

115is a canopy that kind of comes from that inside corner back before the cafeteria is and it will run up to this left-hand side of the modular building and then you'll still have the canopy that runs from the back of the new aviation wing that we carry out to the RTC trailers and also access to a classroom modular so with the price of the modular includes the demolition of the existing trailers in canopy all the site work new canopies in what ways will go in like I said from the back of the cafeteria so that you can traverse back and forth from the left-hand side looking at your screen that includes fire security infrastructure and they'll get all new TVs so the folks moving out there should be pretty excited they'll have a you know

116all new digs and so moving on so this is basically a floor plan of Debi high school the aviation program will be moving into the northeast corner of the facility you can we've got it highlighted in red there and that encompasses about 1600 or 16,000 167 square feet so it is within a hundred square feet I believe of in other words what they had at the aviation academy the current Aviation Academy so like I said working with dr. Blow and dr. Smith we've been able to just take everything from there and move that program to there we've accounted for every classroom every program and all functionalities are there so moving on you can see this is another floor plan that kind of gives you a better view phase one will be the wind tunnel area

117that are that has its challenges as you can tell us a small area and look at what it's going to cost a lot of that is due to the foundation work that's got to be done to support the wind tunnel the new roof system come to find out that the building is on screw piles and engravings so that is that's an expensive undertaking but there phase one they started working on that this past week and so everything is on target we have talked with Centennial and we've talked about the kovat 19 issues they are providing attribute 19 plan for the construction workers that they have working and they also do not see any delays in construction at this time however you know the governor could make a change in that but right now there's no

118no issues with construction so phase 1 will consist of the wind tunnel as you can see there will be air compressor room out back and there'll be a new roof and that is the area where the carpenter shop used to have their dust collector and everything around back and so looking at the other areas phase 2 and as you can see it includes all the classrooms the airframe lab which the kids are gonna be excited when they come back to this it's a it's much nicer than than the one at the airport was it's bigger everything will be located in the ceiling you'll just reach up pull down pneumatics pull down electricity you'll have everything right at your workstation so it's really going to be nice the flight simulator through the window and the reception

119area I've got a slide it and vari in but it will show you it just conveys how transparent that the facility is going to be but this this shows you everything that's gonna be done that's phase 2 so moving right along projected timelines as I said we started phase 1 construction this past this week we plan to start phase 2 on the 27th we're going to hire or we're going to solicit for an RFP to hire a moving company should move Aviation Academy there's some technical things that need to happen with the wind tunnel it needs to be disassembled as you know it's a certified wind tunnel at this time so when we get it back in and its reinstalled we want it to be certified there as well so so we don't want to

120take anything away from instruction or the capabilities demoing the cottages we'll start around May first the starter Aviation Academy is projected to start June 15th that allow us to weeks to move and our plan is to turn the aviation academy back over to the pack on June 30th as we were asked to do with a completion date of August 3rd for the aviation academy and I kind of would like to throw in there that you know some of you may be thinking well we're only gaining in three months three weeks and we're starting a month and a half early Oh a lot of that is due to the foundation work that needs to be done and and just there there there is a curve in there in case there's issues with construction you know as

121you know none of us know what the future kind of holds right this second so so with that we'll move on to there that is hopefully a very close rendition of what you'll see when when you walk into the aviation area off the back main hallway and as you can see looking at this hold on just a second are things popping up on my screen as you can see walking in the transparency what you're looking at is you're looking at the secretary station and then through that you're looking at the flight simulator and if you look in the back of that all the way to the back what you're looking at there you just cait's it because it's dark but you're looking inside the window so I mean it's very transparent through there you can

122see some mock-ups of cutaway jet engines over to your right so it's it's going to be exciting I think the the students should should love it I think the parents should be very happy it's going to be better they're moving into a healthier building it's all gonna be brand new back there except for a few things that we just couldn't do to cut down on the cost there there is one thing we're going to do that nobody knows is if you'll look at the floor when you come into the main walkway of the Aviation Academy the floor is gonna like a runway and I thought that was just a great touch and so you know color doesn't cost any more so anyway that's it for my update does anybody have any questions Mr. Brown yes

123thank you for that update great it definitely looks like a much nicer built you know much nicer facility than what we currently have the one question is in regards to the Learning cottages so it looks like we're going to lose some Learning cottages and with that you know what is the net effect on Denby high school in terms of classroom spaces so is it no concern for losing those learning cottages and and how many learning cottages will we have left you know once these once these ones are gone good question we're taking out to one of them is being used by the ROTC for clothing uniform storage boot storage things of that nature so you're really losing nothing actually if you look at you know Michelle if you'll go back to the overview err overview

124of the trailers the the bottom-right-hand trailer is actually split in half dr. blue thought that would be a great thing to kind of split it up and it provides two smaller spaces there they're all climate control which has been an issue with where ROTC has been storing their uniforms so that kind of kills two birds with one stone and she'll actually have a smaller area for a break out for you know any kind of special program that she may want to use so there we're not losing anything the photo the the photography class will be relocating and great news there they're getting new digital software they're kind of moving up into to you know today's technology it was the old darkroom kind of thing and everybody's pretty excited about that so it's it's so far

125it's been a win-win for everybody that goes to Dendi I think I realize you've lost a view of a of an airplanes landing but except for that one feature everything else is much better all right thank you John Mr. Healy did I see your hand up yes Mr. Chairman I want to say way that was amazing presentation I'm excited for it to open I want to go back to school soccer be part of the aviation program I'm sure being in a nicer facility up-to-date modern we're gonna attract so many kids we already truck so many kids now with the aviation academy I think we're gonna probably double or triple that number once they see that nice facility so thank you to your team the principal of dhimmi high school but making it continue to happen

126for our kids in Newport News thank you I think as people get to see this and they start seeing people going and doing these things it's gonna become a kind of a virus and they're gonna want to do it too I mean to be able to walk through and see people on flight simulators flying airplanes I I would love to have had that when I went to school would have been amazing thank you thank you and Mr. Chairman I'd like to close out this presentation just by just mentioning to those parents who are listening who have current aviation academy students we met earlier this year and we have some very good comments and feedback from our parents who were interested in eventually expanding the curriculum more opportunities with that aviation program we have not taken

127those things off the table what we really wanted to do was to make sure that we can provide continued the promise that provide a quality education for not only the current aviation academy students but those who are coming in this year and in the next few years as we continue to look at better options for for that program and hopefully doing some innovate things in the future so more to come as I mentioned to the parents when we met earlier this year and the faculty sometimes a problem can become an opportunity and we will still continue to look at the opportunity that we'll have to expand programs with the aviation program and eventually hopefully even look at another off-site location so those conversations are still being had we just want to assure our parents is

128that your feedback and your concerns were we're taken very seriously when we met Thank You Mr. Chairman I just want to make sure I mention that to our parents out there thank you with that I believe there's no more questions there being none, we will move the agenda a 5.0 for your attendance report 5.05 membership report and 5.06 constructor report and those three reports were part of your package if there's no questions on those reports we will move on to item 5.07 comments by our superintendent Dr. Parker thank you thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you to all of our board members for your leadership over this over this time that we've had to make many adjustments to our instructional programs I want to just have one give a shout out to our to the

129leadership of the school division, our school board members, our central office leadership, and our school leaders, and our operational leaders, Operations departments for the great work and teamwork that we've exhibited over the past few weeks. many of the things we've accomplished have been done behind the scenes with a lot of dialogue and a lot of discussion and I really appreciate the support of my leadership as we move forward into uncharted territory. I believe we have some celebrations tonight I'd like to go ahead and share some good things going on in the division in my remarks in particular two of our instructional programs have been highlighted by the Virginia School Board associations annual showcase for success directory every year the Virginia School Board Association puts out a directory on the best practices around the state and

130highlight specific programs by school divisions that are in a both innovative and impactful for student success Newport News public schools is one of 44 school divisions from across the state that has they have programs featured in the directory which focuses on innovative programs and support for the profile of a Virginia graduate the directory this year features our programs the iSTEM program which supports the application and integration of authentic literacy and two of our STEM disciplines into a more STEM disciplines which result in students identifying and solving real-world problems many of our students' iSTEM projects are highlighted at the annual stem community Day event held in participation with Christopher Newport University the student assist program the second program is also featured in this year's on showcase this student helpdesk program gives students the opportunity to be

131involved in technology support and integration initiatives assist student partners with with their school's computer technology support team to help with repairs and maintenance, encourage peers to infuse technology into their projects and enrich technology personality of the of the school so students gain on-the-job experience through the help desk by completing network maintenance and desktop troubleshooting so congratulations to our students and our teachers for these two important programs in particular I like to give a shout-out to our STEM supervisor Tammy Byron and CTE supervisor to Toinnette Outland for these wonderful programs I extend my thanks to the community staff and our advocates for their support of our budget development process this year our goal is to create a clear and transparent budget and I think that we have done that again this this year with this budget

132cycle I'd also like to thank our city manager for recommending full funding of the school divisions approved budget this year we know it's challenging times but I think the level of collegiality support and communication between our city leadership and our school division leadership was definitely a step above recent years and I'd like to definitely think our mayor our city manager in our City Council for their for their support of our efforts we will continue to work in collaboration with our city leaders to ensure that we have the financial resources for our students to graduate college career and citizen ready we also want to give a thanks to our the organization Community Knights the Community Knights has awarded Newport News public schools with $2,000 from its COVID 19 relief fund to buy additional Wi-Fi hotspots for

133middle and high school students in support of at-home learning it's great when a non-profit in our community steps up during a time of crisis and provides resources that we need, targeted resources specific to the needs of our students, so we'd like to really thank the Community Knights organization for their support of Newport News public schools. this month is national Autism Awareness Month and through many of our local activities though many of our local activities cannot be held, we are working with our partners to increase understanding and acceptance and foster the support of children and adults with autism. this school division has a wide range of resources to support and advance students I think all of our dedicated staff who serve and work with students with autism your work matters and in the lives of our

134students and we thank you for your support. April is also the month of the military child and tomorrow is purple up day across Virginia, so if you have some purple pajamas or a purple shirt at your next zoom meeting or whatever whatever Wear purple tomorrow and support the month of the military child. to show our support of military children and families, join me at to wear purple snap a quick selfie or a family shot and post your photos on social media and tag us to be included in a Facebook photo album tomorrow evening. and finally I invite our families, students and staff to participate in our next Facebook live event which will be held on Thursday April 30th from 6:30 to 7:30. we had nearly 2,000 if I'm correct, viewers on our first Facebook live

135event. we'd like to break that number and encourage everyone to tune in again on Thursday April 30th from 6:30 to 7:30 for the school division's next Facebook live event. you should join us see members of myself and members of our leadership team as well as a representation from our school board on that Facebook live event. we always look forward to hearing from you so any questions post your questions and comments on our Facebook page during the live event and this session will be aired also by Newport News public school TV television channel Cox 47 and Verizon channel 17 and on our and online at nnpstv.com so that information will be posted as well so please tune in next week we look forward to seeing you and that concludes my comments. Mr. Chairman? thank you Dr.

136Parker we're gonna continue with our agenda item number 6 matters by the school board and I believe we still have our student representative Mr. Gore you are up. um so I wanted to start off by saying that it's a horrendous time for all of us while seniors aren't able to go to prom or hang out with the friends and enjoy the last moments together, juniors aren't able to complete their SAT or ACT testing, and the elementary and middle school students are of course not able to enjoy the company of their friends. however at the same time we're able to see this sort of resiliency develop because with Dr. Parker and other school board members, we are all doing Zoom calls and we're all talking to each other and able to get through this as a

137community, so through that I believe that we're able to once again develop a relationship between the school board members and the students and also we're also able to kind of confide in them as well. um throughout this whole entire ordeal we were able to get we talked to them twice I believe and it was mostly about how are we going to move forward, how are we going to do graduation, do we want a graduation in the summer or the winter and through that of course we had different perspectives across all of the students at the same time it was the willingness to cooperate and the willingness to be open to all ideas and overall I believe that that was really exciting because I wasn't... I did not expect for all of us to come together

138and to ... kind of like reach a resolution and of course um we haven't yet but I believe that it would be coming some sooner or later. thank you thank you Mr. Gore. next we'll start with our school board members Mrs. Alger, you're up. yes thank you being that it's national student leadership week I just want to give a big shout out to the different high schools that are doing great things as far as building spirit and I think it's beyond what we call right brick or brick and mortar just to give some examples for example Menchville is gonna have a virtual talent show is that not amazing? I think that's so awesome and Warwick Raiders ...Raiders they are going to they have a choir and you have to see on social media the clip

139the singing that is going on I mean it's so inspirational so I want to say thank you to all of the folks that are building school spirit virtually so thank you thank you Ms. Alger. Dr. Best? thank you I'll try to be very brief I won't repeat what anyone has said as far as the different months and activities that we're celebrating I would have liked to add a child abuse prevention it was celebrated during the month of April so I would just encourage everyone to make sure that we are looking out and supporting all of the children that are in our village one of the most difficult things in education is to help children to make connections to what they are learning and although we're not in school and we are under this pandemic it's

140it's it's a ripe opportunity for continued learning when we talk about where this virus began to begin in China we look really good at geography we're looking at science it moved on to Europe just the history when we look at the numbers how the cases are so quickly multiplying we talk about math so I'm encouraging every family as I'm doing with my family to do not ponder on the sadness because it is a lot of sadness associated with it but it's also an opportunity for continued learning as well and an opportunity to take advantage of this extra time to spend with your family and show some some extra love thank you thank you Dr. Best. Mr. Brown? thank you and I want to share as well I'm very excited this evening that there are a

141lot of really good things that have been happening and a lot of positive things too to talk about I want to echo a lot of the comments that I'm receiving from parents and from the community as how responsive the school division was and how proactive we were once we got the governor's order and everyone sprung into action with getting the distribution of the devices I immediately got the phone call in my own house in regards to do you have a device and can you log in online and get connected with resources and I've been getting lots of complements and positive feedback from about how responsive we have been and about proactive we have been in terms of getting the work out there and getting the packets distributed and so that people can can do the

142work you heard tonight I want to emphasize to all the students who are listening you heard tonight that the doing the work doing the packets can only help degree it's not going to hurt you you know not doing it is going to be painful for you but if you do it it can only help you so for all the students who have been procrastinating perhaps on getting those packets done now hopefully that's the encouragement that you needed to hear tonight please spread the word that doing the doing those packets and turning in that work is only going to hurt you so please continue to work on that being self motivated and being self driven is it is a life skill so this is a great time to build that kind of a life skill I

143know in my own household this has been a great time for my own kids to learn how to cook more they've been learning to cook meals more and you know breaking bread more together as a family so I hope that you all are taking that opportunity your families to have more share more meals together as opportunity to have breakfast lunch dinner family and so it's spending more time around that kitchen table and growing closer together as a family this is a great time for that I'm also I want to do not want to miss this opportunity tonight because for me this has been I think four or five years in the making in terms of you know the the appointment that we saw tonight which is really to me it's been a monumental a really

144big deal and I'll put it in perspective by saying there was Lord Kelvin or tell them he is one of the most famous mathematicians of all time he's responsible for the first and second law of thermodynamics and he said you cannot measure it you cannot control it and tonight we put in place a director of equity assessment a strategic operations one of the key documents that I you know do like to read them that I love to read is the budget of course a secondary our strategic plan and the projects that we make on it so to know that we now are going to be proactively work towards that working towards measurement measuring equity in our division measuring the strength of our programs the operational effectiveness of what we're getting that's been for me a

145drive and a vision for a very long time I'm so thankful that the administration has heard that that was a need and saw it and and we we fill that position now so going forward we're going to be able to be very proactive and making assessments of our program and making wise strategic decisions with taxpayer dollars so I'm really excited about that and did not want to let the night go without mentioning that. thank you. Thank You Mr. Brown. Mr. Eley? thank you I'm gonna first take this time to thank the staff of Newport News public school system y'all have been working around the clock to make sure all the children and all the staff had their needs met so they can move on through this pandemic and be successful our kids with like doctors

146were singing with all the at-home devices is definitely have made a difference especially my community to a lot of the kids my parents were kind of nervous at first but with all the devices as to support that discloses have given so the children's been overwhelming and I greatly appreciate their support also like to thank the Newport News City Council for for for for funding our budget this year that's been we definitely in the right step for us moving forward with this great partnership from Newport News so I want to commend our City Council as well as our city manager for fulfilling the superintendent's budgets well as the school board budget also I would like to say congratulations to my great friend Ms. Shameka Gerald proud principal at Heritage High School I feel like I'm a

147Hurricane I'm over there so much, just making sure our kids and our teachers are happy so I know the 5800 family is definitely going to miss Ms. Gerald, she was a great asset to Newport News public school system as well as the Heritage the kids loved her she was so interactive with the kids, the principals the teachers everybody over there custodians she was hands-on so she's definitely going to be missed. also I want to send a special thanks to our first responders in Newport News as well as Hampton that is working around the clock to make sure our communities are safe they're doing a great job or a hospital both Sentara and Riverside Regional Hospital are doing a great job so I like to thank all of our first responders for all the great work

148that they are doing now I also like to thank our senior class as well as their parents and families for just working with Newport News public school system, our superintendent as well as the school board we want to do what's best for you and we definitely I was very excited to hear that the superintendent as well as his leadership staff did a zoom meeting with the senior class to see what they wanted he didn't leave it up to the school board to decide or him to decide. he wanted input from the students, the seniors themselves so I want to give a special thanks to the superintendent and staff for going that extra step to make sure that we don't do what we want because it's not about us, it's about what the senior class wants

149so thank you again to the superintendent and the leadership staff and I want everybody to continue to be safe and we will get through this as a community. Thank You Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Eley. Mr. Harris? purpose and motivation and also superintendent school board members for your leadership doing this doing this trying time also the administration and teachers school system because you know providing purpose and motivation I think different perspective is about teaching and how difficult it can be to to teach to teach in school system our teachers are and perspective when we start back to school I want to thank the parents for all the support that they have given their child and also give me support to school system by understanding that you know these things take time to and administration staff

150Dr. Pohl you guys have done a great job and making sure this thing runs fluid I learned a lot just by participating on a lot of things that you guys have put for us so I really appreciate the effort the school board members thank you for your dedication and support and your patience with that back to you. Thank You, Mr. Harris. Vice Chair Mrs. Surles-Law I have to reiterate the thankfulness from this board to Dr. Parker and his team it has been amazing to see you all's negotiate these turbulent waters at this time and I am excited because there was a major theme from all the wonderful presentations informative presentations this evening and that is what is best for students it was verbally said and then it was implied with the decisions from whether it

151was curriculum or you know just mental health support for students on a new platform we're doing it and I'm really excited to know that we're capable of doing it this came at a time in our school calendar when we usually would be doing so much energy towards end of year thinking testing that was put aside and how do we use this energy we used it to actually make strides that we would never have made really on our own just because the time is just never there but we've used it in a very positive way such that we can go to a virtual platform such that our approach to equity takes on a new face right now we've really used this time well and I'm really proud of us I'm excited to see what we continue

152to do through this fourth quarter through the summer and in the fall so to everyone on this call thank you so much for all you're doing for Newport News public schools and thank you Ms. Laws. I guess that brings me to myself at the end again there's nothing else to say but there's great things that are happening and Newport News public schools I'm gonna echo all the things that were said tonight again to all the teachers principals bus drivers cafeteria workers counselors social workers cap you name it we stepped up I would also say that with 28,000 plus kids do produce was first we were first out on the news to tell you what we were doing we were the first to get our plans out some of the local schools who are just getting

153computers into some of the middle schools hands we have done an outstanding job and I'm not bragging but I'm just telling Dr. Parker your team all here getting this meeting set up tonight thank you to my fellow school board members I believe I'm going to break a little bit I thought this meeting was very nice and again we are adapting to change this year to life again as Ms. Surles-Law says there's so many things that we typically will be doing Teacher of the Year, Staff Person of the Year Salutatorian of the year, all those things that have taken place have have are not gonna be done this year and since it what they used to be done but I'm going to say let's us all continue to work together and we do that by staying

154apart and we will all get through this and that said I'm there's nothing else I will adjourn the meeting goodnight. everyone please stay safe.